Ada Louise Huxtable Obituary

NEW YORK (AP) - Ada Louise Huxtable, who turned her love and appreciation of the built environment into a pioneering and prize-winning career as an architecture critic, has died at age 91.

Her attorney, Robert Shapiro, said Huxtable died Monday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan after an illness.

Huxtable began working at The New York Times in 1963 and was a groundbreaker in bringing architecture criticism to an American newspaper. In her time there, she also was the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, in 1970.

Huxtable, a native New Yorker, later went to work for The Wall Street Journal and had pieces published as recently as last month.

She looked at buildings and architecture for more than the actual physical design but also for the meaning and importance of the structures in their environment.

In the Dec. 3 piece for The Journal, she took on - and found lacking - efforts to renovate the main New York Public Library building.

"This is a plan devised out of a profound ignorance of or willful disregard for not only the library's original concept and design, but also the folly of altering its meaning and mission and compromising its historical and architectural integrity," she wrote. "You don't 'update' a masterpiece. 'Modernization' may be the most dangerously misused word in the English language."

It wasn't only in the journalism world that she was recognized. In 1981, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant."

NEW YORK (AP) - Ada Louise Huxtable, who turned her love and appreciation of the built environment into a pioneering and prize-winning career as an architecture critic, has died at age 91.

Her attorney, Robert Shapiro, said Huxtable died Monday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan after an illness.

Huxtable began working at The New York Times in 1963 and was a groundbreaker in bringing architecture criticism to an American newspaper. In her time there, she also was the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, in 1970.

Huxtable, a native New Yorker, later went to work for The Wall Street Journal and had pieces published as recently as last month.

She looked at buildings and architecture for more than the actual physical design but also for the meaning and importance of the structures in their environment.

In the Dec. 3 piece for The Journal, she took on - and found lacking - efforts to renovate the main New York Public Library building.

"This is a plan devised out of a profound ignorance of or willful disregard for not only the library's original concept and design, but also the folly of altering its meaning and mission and compromising its historical and architectural integrity," she wrote. "You don't 'update' a masterpiece. 'Modernization' may be the most dangerously misused word in the English language."

It wasn't only in the journalism world that she was recognized. In 1981, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant."

HUXTABLE--Ada Louise. The Board and Staff of The New York Landmarks Conservancy celebrate the life of Ada Louise Huxtable, one of our founding Board Members. Her fierce devotion to good buildings...
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Published in The New York Times on January 9, 2013

Huxtable--Ada Louise. The Urban Design and Architecture Studies Program at New York University regrets the loss of Ada Louise Huxtable, in whose honor a prize is awarded each year to our outstanding...
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Published in The New York Times on January 9, 2013

HUXTABLE--Ada Louise. The board and staff of the Architectural League of New York mourn the death and celebrate the life and work of Ada Louise Huxtable, fearless, peerless, formidable, and beloved...
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Published in The New York Times on January 9, 2013

HUXTABLE--Ada Louise, The American Academy of Arts and Letters notes with sorrow the death of our beloved colleague who joined literature to architecture in critical writings that have enlivened...
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Published in The New York Times on January 10, 2013

HUXTABLE--Ada Louise. It is with profound sadness that the Hunter College community mourns the passing of our esteemed alumna Ada Louise Huxtable '41. A visionary talent who got her start designing...
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Published in The New York Times on January 10, 2013

HUXTABLE--Ada Louise. It is with a deep sense of sorrow I learned of Ada Louise Huxtable's death. It was her effort to stop the sale of St Bartholmew's church that eventually led to the church's...
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Published in The New York Times on January 10, 2013

HUXTABLE--Ada Louise. Her friends and admirers at The Forum For Urban Design note with sadness the death of Ada Louise Huxtable, one of our nation's most effective forces for appropriate design of...
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